Braunstone Community Primary School

Braunstone Community Primary School Cort Crescent, Braunstone, Leicestershire, LE3 1QH

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Requires improvement 3 Achievement of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Requires improvement 3 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not yet good because

 Progress varies over time and between classes. Overall it is not strong enough to ensure that attainment at the end of Year 6 is always sufficiently high.  The progress of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is slower than that of others.  The quality of teaching varies and is not always effective enough for all pupils.  Activities are sometimes a bit too difficult for some pupils and too easy for others which slows progress overall.  Teaching assistants are not always deployed effectively to help pupils progress.  Pupils are not always challenged, or shown how to do better in their learning.  Leaders, including those in the Early Years Foundation Stage and governors, do not check frequently or carefully enough that improvements, including those in teaching and achievement, happen consistently, rapidly and effectively.  Achievement in the Early Years Foundation Stage requires improvement because activities

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not yet good because

are sometimes too easy or too difficult for some children.  Behaviour requires improvement because a few pupils have extremely challenging behaviour. There are high levels of exclusions. Outbursts from a very few pupils occasionally disrupt others.

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The school has the following strengths

 Most pupils behave well in and out of lessons. They are polite, friendly and keen to learn.  The school works well to promote safety. Pupils feel safe because relationships are good and they know that staff care and will help them whenever they need it.  Lessons are well planned, interesting and relevant, helping prepare pupils for later life and learning.  The range of activities and lessons is broad. Physical education is a strength.  The school is tidy, attractive and orderly. Displays are imaginative and inspiring.  Morale is good and staff are keen to improve their skills in order to raise pupils’ achievement.

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Information about this inspection

 During the inspection, 32 lessons or part-lessons were observed, eight of them jointly with a senior leader.  Discussions were held with parents, carers, pupils, governors, two representatives from the local authority, senior leaders and staff.  There were too few responses to the online questionnaire Parent View to report. Inspectors received the views of parents and carers through the 134 responses to a recent school questionnaire with the same questions as the online Parent View questionnaire and informal discussions.  The inspectors considered the views of staff through the 55 responses to the Ofsted inspection questionnaire and discussions.  The inspectors observed the school’s work and looked at a number of documents, including the school’s information on pupils’ current progress, pupils’ work, checks on the quality of teaching and pupils’ achievement, local authority reports, documents relating to safeguarding and records

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Inspection team

Jo Curd, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Dennis Brittain Additional Inspector Vreta Bagilhole Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This school is much larger than most other primary schools. It has two single-age classes in each year group from Reception to Year 6 and a Nursery.  At nearly 70, per cent the proportion of pupils who are known to be eligible for pupil premium funding is much higher than the national average. This is additional funding for specific groups of pupils, in this case, those who are known to be eligible for free school meals or who are looked after by the local authority.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, supported at school action, is much higher than the national average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, supported at school action plus, or with a statement, is above the national average. Some of these pupils have particularly complex and profound additional needs.  The school provides a nurture unit and a learning support unit for pupils who need extra

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Information about this school

support.  Almost half of the pupils are from a wide range of minority ethnic groups. Almost 20 per cent have English as an additional language. A few are at an early stage of learning English.  A very few pupils have recently started attending the Phoenix Behavioural Support Unit.  There have been several staff changes, including teachers and leadership, since the previous inspection. The headteacher joined the school in September 2012. An assistant headteacher joined the school in September 2013, this being a brand new post with responsibility for behaviour, pastoral support and attendance.  In 2013 the school did not meet the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.  The school runs a breakfast club from 8.00 am to 8.45 am before school each day.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve achievement, especially of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, by raising the quality of teaching through ensuring that:  activities are suitably challenging for all groups and are neither too hard or too easy for some  teaching assistants’ time is used effectively  pupils are challenged and know how to extend their learning.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve behaviour so that exclusions are reduced and the poor behaviour of a very few does not disrupt the learning of others.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the frequency and detail of monitoring by leaders at all levels, to check that improvements happen rapidly, consistently and effectively and that they can act quickly if developments do not happen.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Achievement across the school varies too much and is sometimes too slow to ensure that attainment at the end of Year 6 is always good enough. Variations in progress between different classes reduces equality of opportunity and means that some discrimination continues. No group, including those from minority ethnic groups, underachieves because some pupils in all groups make good progress.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children start in the Nursery or Reception classes with much lower levels of knowledge, skills and experience than in most other schools. Progress varies and requires improvement overall. Some tasks are a bit too easy for some pupils and too hard for others. Despite some positive progress, the proportion of children who reach good levels of development by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is much lower than that of the ‘national pilot scheme’.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Achievement of six year-olds in the phonics (the sound which letters make) check improved greatly in 2013 but is still below the national average. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for pupil premium funding who did well in this check is on par with others in the school.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The progress of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs requires improvement because it is too slow for some. This is because tasks are sometimes too difficult and because teaching assistants are not always deployed sufficiently well to support them effectively.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The achievement of the more-able pupils requires improvement because work is not always sufficiently challenging and is sometimes a bit too easy. Progress of these pupils also slows when they finish tasks prematurely and have to wait for others to catch up before moving on.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils who have English as an additional language usually make good progress. They are often highly motivated and keen to learn. They are welcomed and integrated well into the school.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Progress in reading and mathematics fluctuates. Progress in writing has improved considerably over the past year because staff are well-trained and have high expectations for each pupil’s success. At the end of the school year in 2013, pupils in Year 6 had made better progress in writing than in most other schools. A wide range of writing, from pupils of all ages, is displayed throughout the school, celebrating pupils’ achievement and helping them all to see themselves as successful writers.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 During the inspection most pupils, of all ages and groups, made good progress in literacy and mathematics. Pupils use phonics well. They are keen and confident in their attempts to read and write new words and are rightly proud of their success. Pupils develop their communication skills well too because opportunities for pupil discussion are central to most lessons. They are also positive about mathematics and confidently use skills and concepts to answer a range of questions and problems.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupil premium funding pays for additional staff, including the new assistant headteacher, to support behaviour and learning. The progress of these pupils is broadly in line with others. Lower starting points mean that they are often still behind at the end of Year 6. In 2013 they were two and a half terms behind others in English and a term and a half in mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The number of pupils attending the off-site behavioural support unit is too low and the arrangement is too new to be able to report on the achievement of these pupils.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Observations, work in books and monitoring show that teaching requires improvement, as it varies too much and has not been good enough in all classes, to accelerate progress across the school or to raise attainment.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not use their good understanding of pupils well enough, to make sure that activities are suitable and these are sometimes too easy or too difficult for some. Time for learning is lost if pupils have to wait, because they finish a task quickly or it is too hard. For example, more-able pupils in a Key Stage 1 phonics lesson wrote their words quickly, but had to wait for the rest of the group to complete theirs, before they could move on.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching assistants often play a highly valuable and effective role helping pupils’ learning. They are sometimes underused in whole class sessions because teachers do not deploy them effectively. Teaching assistants are not always able to support particular pupils, including some with disabilities and special educational needs, because they occasionally have to spend more time than allocated, supervising challenging behaviour.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not always guide or challenge pupils to extend their learning further. This is sometimes seen in marking where common spelling mistakes are ignored, meaning that pupils cannot learn from their mistakes, or when teachers give pupils additional work such as mathematical sums but do not check that pupils do them.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching in the Early Years Foundation Stage requires improvement. Opportunities for children to enjoy and learn in a wide range of well-planned activities inside and out are good. However some activities, including a lesson to promote children’s listening and early reading skills in the Nursery, are sometimes a bit too easy or too difficult for some children and therefore slow rather than help their achievement.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Despite some weaknesses which persist, the quality of teaching has improved and demonstrates leaders’ capacity to improve the school. During the inspection, the quality seen in most lesson observations was good. This agrees with the records of recent lesson observations carried out by school leaders. Most parents, carers, staff and pupils are positive about teaching and pupils say they enjoy learning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers plan interesting, relevant lessons, which extend pupils’ experience and knowledge of the wider world. In a Key Stage 1 English lesson, pupils were interested to read and write about life in India and compare it to their own life here. This helped both their literacy and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching in the learning support unit and nurture unit is positive. Staff skilfully help pupils develop confidence, self-esteem, social skills and behaviour alongside communication, language, literacy and mathematical skills. A small group of Key Stage 2 boys developed excellent communication and literacy skills, as they read interesting questions from cards, imaginatively shaped as question marks and discussed these together. Pupils’ positive attitudes were summed up when one boy answered a question about what his favourite thing was. He said ‘being here’ (in the learning support unit).

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. A very small minority of pupils have extremely challenging behaviour. Staff usually manage these well, but volatile outbursts occasionally take time to sort out and disturb the learning of the class.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Leaders take a firm line on unacceptable behaviour and rates of short term exclusions have increased. Most of these are successful, as the behaviour of these pupils improves. Some challenging behaviour persists however and requires improvement.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils are positive about school and proud of their work. Attendance is rising even though overall rates remain low. Relatively high levels of exclusions exacerbate these levels.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Most pupils are well behaved in and out of lessons. Most pupils remain calm and settled, but slightly less engaged when activities are a bit too easy or difficult for them.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Relationships are good and the school atmosphere is usually calm and settled. Lunch-time in the dining hall is a pleasant, sociable experience, as pupils enjoy chatting and eating a healthy lunch together. Pupils play together well in the playground and enjoy each other’s company.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Pupils say they feel safe because they know that staff and friends will help them if they need it. The vast majority of staff, parents and carers who responded to the school questionnaire were positive about safety.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils have a good understanding of different types of bullying, including physical, verbal and cyber bullying. They know what to do to keep themselves safe and are confident that staff sort out the few incidents of bullying that do occur quickly and effectively.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The nurture group and the very new learning support unit have a very positive impact on the behaviour of some pupils with particularly challenging behaviour.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Playtimes are active, fun and safe. Pupils play well together and most pupils behave well.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The breakfast club provides a safe and stimulating start to the day for those who use it.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Some leaders have found changes in leadership challenging and are only just moving into their new roles. This is particular true for the way they all check that developments are implemented consistently, effectively and rapidly across the school. For example, leaders have introduced guidelines to show pupils how to improve. Although pupils now have these in their books, few teachers are using them yet.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The headteacher and some other leaders, including some governors, know the school well and have taken strategic action to develop the school and tackle difficulties. The very recent appointment of the new assistant headteacher to lead improvements on behaviour, pastoral support and attendance is just one example of this. Many of these actions are new and although there is some evidence of positive impact they are not yet showing their full impact on teaching or achievement.  Leaders have improved assessments and are beginning to use these to improve teaching; for example, helping teachers identify where progress slows and how this can be addressed. They do not always check how well teachers use the assessments to plan suitable activities and some do not use them well.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders, including subject leaders and those responsible for areas of learning including within the Early Years Foundation Stage, ensure that the content of pupils’ learning is broad and balanced. Physical education is frequent and effective. The school’s resident artist provides an inspiring role-model for pupils and helps them make a range of attractive artefacts which are displayed around the school. A strong emphasis on including a wide range of information and resources in lessons successfully promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Primary sports funding is being used well to expand the range of sports offered at the school. This is through hiring specialist sports coaches to teach pupils and train staff. Physical education has a high priority in the school, successfully helping the fitness, well-being and health of all. Pupils enjoy these lessons and are rightly proud of their success in competitions with other schools.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Most of the staff, parents and carers who responded to the school’s recent questionnaires are positive. A few staff have concerns about communication as well as behaviour and want these to be improved.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 For various reasons, including changes in personnel, support from the local authority was not sufficient in the headteacher’s first year at the school. This has now been rectified and the school improvement adviser is providing valuable and effective advice on priorities for development and successfully helping to refine and strengthen leaders’ skills.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governance requires improvement because governors do not monitor or challenge sufficiently to ensure that improvements happen rapidly enough. They have received training and have a good understanding of how good teaching and rates of progress are compared with other schools. Governors manage finances well. They know how pupil premium is spent and the impact of this. They are involved in the performance management of the headteacher and know that systems to reward teachers for their impact on achievement are secure. Governors hold the safety and well-being of pupils as a high priority and ensure that all their statutory duties relating to these are met.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school is

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Grade Judgement Description

failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 128085 Local authority Leicester City Inspection number 440632

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 418 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Helene Sutliff Headteacher Jatinder Mahil Date of previous school inspection 24 May 2012 Telephone number 0116 2858130 Fax number 0116 2547704 Email address jmahil@braunstone.leicester.sch.uk guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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School details

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work- based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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School details

telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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